CNN 'Conservationist' a Liberal Blogger and Carbon Credit Trader

By

Jeff Poor

May 29, 2008 - 2:51pm

CNN “American Morning” took the global warming agenda to a new level in a May 29 segment. Rather than just warning of the bad things that could happen from this so-called phenomenon, the morning show had a segment featuring a carbon credit salesman who makes money from global warming alarmism.

“American Morning” co-host Kyra Phillips introduced Howard Gould as a “conservationist,” “green entrepreneur” and the co-founder of Equator Environmental, LLC. She interviewed him as an expert on proposals to establish a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions like what is found in the Lieberman-Warner bill (S.2191).

But Phillips didn’t reveal what Equator Environmental does. According to [1]its Web site, the organization “specializes in the generation and management of high-quality carbon credits and environmental assets derived from reforestation, forest conservation and sustainable land management.”

Phillips also failed to mention Gould’s political leanings. He is a blogger for The Huffington Post, a left-wing Web site. His most recent entry was [2]published February 5.

On “American Morning,” Gould explained cap-and-trade systems, and said the objective “is to lessen the amount of emissions per year so those cap numbers will come down over time. So, essentially, this market that we’re talking about now potentially could be the largest market ever created in the world and certainly the largest commodity market.”

Rather than cite economists and researchers, Phillips challenged Gould with the claim that “big businesses and the coal industry … are opposed to the legislation, going, this is, this is not the right timing, this is going to kill the economy.”

Gould, sounding like global warming alarmist former Vice President Al Gore, warned that carbon-limiting action has to be taken and that the enormous costs associated with implementing a cap-and-trade plan are “the best situation that we’ve got.”

“I think what we also have to remember, that this isn’t kind of a decision do we do this or do we not?” Gould said. “We’re in a state right now where we’re surpassing the worst case models for climate change. We don’t really have a choice. We need to lessen the emissions. So, we’re trying to figure out what would be the best possible solution for this. So it’s not a ‘do we do this, do we not’ decision. We have no choice.”

Rather than challenging Gould further, Phillips cited a study from the left-wing Natural Resources Defense Council and TuftsUniversity that estimated a $1.87 trillion price tag for global-warming related costs – increased water costs due to drought, lost real estate from rising sea levels, increased energy costs because of hotter weather, etc. -- by the year 2100.

But Phillips didn’t cite estimates of how much implementing the Lieberman-Warner bill would cost.

Lieberman-Warner would result in losses of cumulative gross domestic product of at least $1.7 trillion, which could reach $4.8 trillion by 2030 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) – far exceeding the cited $1.87 trillion price tag of global warming by 2100, [3]according to a recently published report by The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. The analysis also said the bill could result in losses of jobs exceeding 500,000 before 2030 and possibly approaching 1 million, and an increase of $467 per household annually in natural gas and electricity costs.

Like many other media reports on global warming, “American Morning” took the connection between carbon emissions and global warming for granted and didn’t challenge Gould when he said “Imagine if we could alleviate climate change and it stopped a Katrina from happening it’s well worth the expense.” But many scientists still debate the causes and severity of global warming, particularly when it comes to hurricanes.

Senior meteorologist Dr. Joe Sobel of AccuWeather, winner of the American Meteorological Society 2005 Award for Broadcaster of the Year, [4]wrote on May 9, 2007 on AccuWeather.com hurricanes have little to do with global warming:

“It has been claimed that global warming is responsible for an increasing number of tropical storms and hurricanes, but here is a reason that the number of storms is increasing that has absolutely nothing to do with global warming. It’s because we are mixing apples and oranges and calling them all apples!”

On May 16, The Financial Post (a Canadian business journalism site) wrote about the [5]large number of dissenting scientists who had signed a petition against imposing greenhouse gas limits. That petition: the Oregon Petition, has more than 31,000 signatures from scientists who [6]“urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals.”

Related Links:

[7]A Special Report from BMI: Global Warming Censored

BMI's Special Report [8]"Fire & Ice: Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can't decide weather we face an ice or warming"

[9]Climate of Bias: BMI's page devoted entirely to global warming and climate change in the media.

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